Community Profile:
Anchorage

Gazette

Anchorage is situated in one of
the most beautiful spots in North America. The city is at
the base of the Chugach Mountains, and on the shores of the
Cook Inlet. Above downtown Anchorage, Mt. Sustina glows pink
during spring sunsets. On clear days, Mt. Denali, the
highest peak in North America, looms in the distance.

Anchorage
(Photo by National Ocean Service, NOAA).Click
image for a larger view.

Weather: The temperature averages between 6 and 20
degrees Fahrenheit in January, and between 50 and 70 degrees
in July. Annual precipitation is 15.9 inches, with 69 inches
of snowfall.

Historical Overview

Archeological findings show
that the Anchorage area in south central Alaska was
inhabited first by Eskimo and later Dena'ina Athabascan
people. Contact with 18th century European explorers
brought disease to the Dena'ina Indians. The tribe,
numbering 5,000 at the time of discovery, was decimated
by small pox and other illnesses in just a few years.

In 1778, English Explorer
James Cook sailed up what is now Cook Inlet, hoping to
find a waterway that would lead back into North America.
Frustrated when he was blocked at the head of the inlet,
he named the waterway he'd just sailed through
"Turnagain."

In 1867, after the United
States purchased Alaska from Russia, the Alaska
Commercial Company set up mining and rail operations
along Cook Inlet. Gold mining, the principal industry,
attracted many settlers to the muddy, make-shift
community that would one day become Anchorage.

In 1915, President Woodrow
Wilson authorized the construction of a railroad from the
port of Seward to Anchorage, and the population swelled
to 2,000. City planners mapped the area on a grid, then
held the Anchorage Townsite Auction, selling six hundred
lots in what is today downtown. When the railroad was
completed in 1923, President Warren Harding drove the
final spike -- gold, of course -- into place.

On March 27, 1964, the Good
Friday earthquake, centered 80 miles off-shore, struck
Anchorage, permanently altering much of the coastal
landscape. Whole streets dropped ten to twenty feet into
the earth, leaving gaping craters along much of the
roadway. Several blocks in the downtown neighborhood of
"Turnagain by the Sea" collapsed into Cook Inlet. One
hundred and thirty people died in Alaska as a result of
this quake.

Twentieth century Anchorage
has experienced two major growth spurts. The first came
during World War II, with the construction of military
bases in the area. The population grew from 3,000 in 1940
to 47,000 in 1950. The second took place in the 1970s,
with the construction of the Alaska oil pipeline. By the
early 1980s, the population grew to 184,775, over half
that of the entire state.

Economy

Anchorage is headquarters
for government, corporate and military installations, and
home to the state's largest newspaper. Unemployment is
generally low. Most residents work in government, energy,
or communications, and 9,000 military men and women are
stationed in the city. Almost 1,000 residents hold
commercial fishing permits, but, since the area is not
known for its commercial fisheries, these residents most
likely fish elsewhere.

Though the oil boom has
subsided, energy continues to play a huge role in the
community's economic and political life. In recent years,
the state has begun negotiations with the oil industry
over the construction of a pipeline to bring natural gas
from Alaska's North Slope southward into the continental
United States, and possibly to an international market.
Many predict another boom if this pipeline is indeed
built.

Community Issues

Alaska, with its remote
location and frontier image, has attracted many people
with libertarian leanings who resent government
involvement in their day-to-day lives. As late as 1980,
marijuana was legal in parts of the state, and the
constitutional right to privacy was considered the
broadest in the country. But since then, many factors
have contributed to an ideological shift: changes in the
way voting districts are arranged; increased lobbying for
development; a growth in the number and influence of
fundamental Christian churches. In the early 1990s, after
reapportionment of voting districts, the state
legislature, once controlled by Democrats, was taken over
by Republicans.

Anchorage, as the state's
largest city, has been the site of many events that
illustrate the political division in the state. In 2001,
Anchorage made national headlines when police arrested
three young men who had driven through the city,
videotaping themselves as they shot paint ball bullets at
Alaska Natives. The Anchorage Daily News editorial pages
were blanketed with commentary about race relations in
the state, and the Alaska Federation of Natives asked for
and received a federal investigation into the racial
climate. But anti-hate crime legislation was tabled by
the legislature, and the debate about race relations
continues.